I’ve a rather generic question, but i really love Latin, and I’m also interested in Greek, I’ve ‘skimmed’ through Latin grammar before and it looks incredibally difficult, probably a couple hundred declensions for nouns and verbs. I looked at a Koine book for learning NT and it didnt seem nearly as difficult, but im more interested in Latin. I’m also at an intermediate french level, which might help with vocabulary.
If I were to study on my own, which would be easiest, and would Latin even be realistic to get intermediate in within a year and to learn on your own.
Hi Linguos, I’ll try to answer your “generic question”. This topic comes up quite a bit, so there are many other posts along these lines if you care to look for them as well.
I would say Ancient Greek is harder than Latin, and I am under the assumption that both are harder than Koine Greek. You should go for what you are most interested in because what is more important than difficulty is motivation, which is itself propelled mostly by interest. French or any Romance language is a great asset to learning Latin, but English will probably be your greatest help if it is your main language. You can practically guess Latin words from English ones and vice versa after a little while and it is immensely helpful to memorization to be able to relate almost every Latin word to a derivative in English, a feature which Greek does not possess as strongly.
I would guarantee you that if you put the necessary time (about 2-5 hours a week) into Latin, you would be at an advanced level by the time a year had gone by, certainly at an intermediate level within a few months if you are devoted and talented with language. I feel like I understand Latin very well and I can read or say almost anything I want to in Latin as long as I know the vocabulary or have a dictionary, although I do get stumped every now and then; I started Latin in September of 2002, only about 1½ years ago. Don’t let the books intimidate you, flipping ahead in the pages and seeing scary things is only frightening because you haven’t been gradually introduced to the more advanced concepts. If you do choose to learn Latin, or any language for that matter, make sure you select a book that you are comfortable with. Don’t keep using one that is ruining your love for the language; you can quit and pick up on the same topic in a different book… Latin is Latin, no matter what the book is.
I’ve a rather generic question, but i really love Latin, and I’m also interested in Greek
Just out of curiosity, how do you know you love it if you haven’t learned it yet?
hi linguos. benissimus is right; start latin, it’s clear from your post that that’s the language you’re most interested in.
you can definitely get on top of latin (or koine) within a year: to a workable level at least: once you understand how the whole language generally works (so you know how and where to look up specific things, like which tense of a verb to use, and how to spell it). it’s different to french in fundamental ways, even though the languages are related.
The 2 best websites giving a “big picture” explanation of Latin are:
That site is a bit of a mess, but once you go through all the links, it shows you how even long complicated Latin sentences are made up of basic “chunks”. It also shows which “chunks” can be changed for others in Latin, and how they all work together. I found this site really useful when I started latin (once i figured out how to use the site).
If you’ve got any questions about the Latin concepts discussed on those sites, I’m sure benissimus and others here on textkit can help you out.
From another neophyte, I’m starting with Latin, and will then proceed with Greek. Welcome, and good luck. You can be as skilled as you like on your own, if you simply put in the necessary time.
I thought Latin was far easier for me than Koine… however, I did the greek first so that could be why. Still, it seems to me that latin grammar is like greek grammar and latin vocab is like english vocab, so I feel like it’s right between the two languages. But I don’t think it matters which you do first, so definitely do the one in which you are most interested! Both are fascinating and fun.
Latin is more fun in regards to reading material, since there is so much more to it. Koine is fairly limited, since we have only a few books written in koine… after that, when I started learning latin, I felt like a kid in a candy shop because there were SO many books to buy and read (not that I’ve read any of them yet, but I am working on it!).
I would guarantee you that if you put the necessary time (about 2-5 hours a week) into Latin, you would be at an advanced level by the time a year had gone by, certainly at an intermediate level within a few months if you are devoted and talented with language.
Haudquaquam, as Virgil would say. 2 hours of Latin per week for about 1 year would probably make one finish the D’Ooge book, and that does not include the reading matter which again would take about 4 months if you learn the vocabulary. To become advanced one must also have an advanced vocabulary. This can not be done at all within 1 year, not even close with 5 hours per week, since most time will be devoted to the tedious acquisition of grammar. An advanced vocabulary round these parts is probably triple an intermediate vocabulary, perhaps 5000. 1 year? Also to make oneself advanced a prose composition is certainly in order, which on 2 hours per week would probably take 2 years. On 5 hours probably one. Remember a good prose composition teaches the advanced more detailed grammar required for complex composition.
In addition to be properly advanced as Ulpanius has rightly stated a fair attempt at Verse Composition is required!
I am not trying to be factious here Steven, but your estimations are extremely inaccurate, since you are in the greatest sense linguistically gifted, and you, for mere want of time, as I, are nowhere near to passing this ‘advanced’ point. Indeed I would not say myself to be intermediate.
My vocabulary is poor. And by now despite my unique composition potential I have memorized enough words. This can’t be life.
That’s bad advice which should be ignored since it is ridiculously demanding and deterring for a beginner.
Just out of curiosity, how do you know you love it if you haven’t learned it yet? >
Well, good question, I cant really say that I do know a lot about Latin, but I know how to pronounce it (just not the accent which Im sure no one does), as well as the overall beauty it conveys…its a different kind than I find with languages such as Spanish. It seems to have a neutral sound, for a lack of better term, its just really…(X adjective), can’t find a word for it…
I do have two questions, ones not so related though.
First, if I were to begin studing Latin, could anybody recommend any really good books? Particularly one that is easy to learn from whilst gaining a realatively high(ish) intermediate level or more, instead of teaching me the bare fundamentals.
My other question (the stupid one), just how does one pronounce a Latin ‘r’, because I’ve studied french and spanish and both are completely different than each other and english.
I might have some difficulties with Latin in about 5 or so months. I’m in highschool with a wierd scheduling where four quarter classes last only one semester, thus I’m out of french for half a year. Next year I begin Spanish (I stopped studing it after 7th grade), as well as french 3/4 (the 5 month reference). I also do know there are major differences, Latin uses cases instead of depending solely on prepositions (Ive been introduced to this a little with German.) I just find it incredibally difficult to understand the syntax when its been scrambled from the usual structure by cases, but Latin is mainly written so it wouldn’t be so difficult.
One more question, if anyone has knowledge of vulgar Latin, is the vocab basically the same as classical?[/quote]
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I just checked out those links…they did the usual Latin discouraging, it looks incredibally difficult, because Ive been tempted to begin either Latin or actually learn German. german however i know i can do..
goodness. I think that latin is a thousand times easier than german. however, I don’t know that since I’ve never tried to study german… I just know that my brain screams at the thought. Latin really isn’t difficult, so I recommend that you simply get started and before you know it you will be laughing and wondering what you were worried about. It’s a pretty easy language, I would say much more on the difficulty level of Spanish than anything else (in fact if you have some spanish, some french, and some german, latin should be a breeze). You will get used to the word orders quickly enough… in fact that’s one of my favourite parts of inflected languages, since the author is so much more free to use his words however he likes–english, on the other hand, is rigid and boring in comparison.
as for books, a lot of people on this site love D’ooge, which is available for free download here. There are also a number of us who use Wheelock (which you’d have to buy). Neither one gives you a lot of depth, but they are great for beginners. If you want something more intense I hear that the Oxford Latin Course is good, but I tried it for a couple of days and decided I wanted something simpler for starting out.
Obviously, this level of proficiency would depend on what you think constitutes an advanced level. My point is that you have not studied Latin for even a year yet and while I disagree with your obsession for learning vocabulary without a context, Aramique, you are still more advanced than many people who have studied Latin for over a year at my school because you have (or at some point had) determination and resources. I don’t know what an advanced level is, but being able to do prose composition just as easily (if not moreso) than reading, being able to read Ovid or Catullus nearly as easily as English, and being able to spout off just about any grammatical term off the top of my head is certainly enough to be expected after only a year.
I do however respect your opinion. Not everyone develops that feeling for the language or can remember words easily, and I know I spend more than 5 hours a week for sure. A better piece of advice would be to do all of the work that your text offers, ask as many questions as possible when you are confused, and make sure you understand each topic fully before going much farther in your text. It is also very helpful to learn from two textbooks at a time, perhaps one for your grammar and exercises and another for supplementary reading (e.g. the Oxford Latin Course for its abundant reading material).
The accent is pretty easy once you get used to it. Greek on the other hand…
First, if I were to begin studing Latin, could anybody recommend any really good books? Particularly one that is easy to learn from whilst gaining a realatively high(ish) intermediate level or more, instead of teaching me the bare fundamentals.
I am a partisan of Wheelock’s Latin. It is difficult to move into reading Latin authors until you have finished the book, but the benefit is that the exercises in the book start out as adaptations from actual writings, with some unchanged ones worked in, and then as you become more advanced, less and less of them are modifications and soon you are reading real Latin. It also has about 30 exercises per chapter, 1-4 reading passages per chapter, and self-quizzes in the back for each chapter. There are keys to all of these on Textkit.
Textkit also has some fine books, though they are a bit rigorous by modern standards and may be harder to understand. Latin: An Intensive Course is the most popular one other than Wheelock’s, but it crams a lot of material into each chapter. If you spread out each chapter, you could make it an easier course, or you can do it the intensive way and learn Latin in a couple weeks or months. This book is also packed with exercises, but lacks a key to my knowledge.
My other question (the stupid one), just how does one pronounce a Latin ‘r’, because I’ve studied french and spanish and both are completely different than each other and english.
I haven’t studied phonology, but from what I understand it is to be rolled, but not for a long time like the Spanish double R. The Romans nicknamed the letter R the littera canina, “the dog letter”, so we definitely know it made a growling noise!
I might have some difficulties with Latin in about 5 or so months. I’m in highschool with a wierd scheduling where four quarter classes last only one semester, thus I’m out of french for half a year. Next year I begin Spanish (I stopped studing it after 7th grade), as well as french 3/4 (the 5 month reference). I also do know there are major differences, Latin uses cases instead of depending solely on prepositions (Ive been introduced to this a little with German.) I just find it incredibally difficult to understand the syntax when its been scrambled from the usual structure by cases, but Latin is mainly written so it wouldn’t be so difficult.
It’s obvious that you have a lot of preconceptions. You should probably stop thinking of things as “usual” or “scrambled” With the cases, once you know where they lie in English, you should be able to identify them in Latin too, and then just properly inflect the endings of the nouns. You do of course have to memorize entire declensions, but this is no different from memorizing conjugation tables.
One more question, if anyone has knowledge of vulgar Latin, is the vocab basically the same as classical?
We don’t know much about Vulgar Latin because it was mainly spoken and rarely written. The vocabulary which we have for Vulgar Latin is mainly reconstructed based on comparisons with Romance languages and Latin, but I don’t know where you could find a comprehensive list of these or a dictionary for them. It definitely shares a lot in common with Classical Latin, but is in many ways dissimilar. Compound words and prefixes tend to be used more freely, verbs tend to degrade to first conjugation, and there are many other linguistic habits.
My only real preconception is that there are so many declensions, and many of them look the same, it seems incredibally confusing, as if you would have to follow the context but yet, if they change the syntax (SVO..or whatever is preferred) then it might be almost impossible to get the exact meaning…
i just multpily it all together, the verbs and nouns, each one has to have at least 200 declensions..
Not really… each noun has a maximum of 10 forms, and the fact that some of them are the same makes it easier to memorize. Verbs have many forms, but they come in smaller sets. They also are not that much different from each other… for example, past (imperfect) tense is just the same as the present, but with the two letters -ba- inserted in the middle of the word.
With the cases, once you know where they lie in English, you should be able to identify them in Latin too, and then just properly inflect the endings of the nouns. You do of course have to memorize entire declensions, but this is no different from memorizing conjugation tables.